*****************************************************
HOW TO BEAT THE OPFOR
*****************************************************
1. Shoot straighter
2. Move faster
3. Plan quicker
4. Kill them first
OK, seriously...
Here are what I have seen as the keys to beating the OPFOR, in order of priority:
1. Strip away his eyes:
Before you go any further, read the entry on the Warfighters’ Exchange about Recon.
So, obviously, the counter-recon fight is important, but rarely do we take it
seriously enough to win it. Immediately upon receipt of COM, tell one CO/TM to go
to sleep, with the expectation that they will be up and awake and alert
from 0100-0600 with no other purpose than to kill enemy recon. Make them
the brigade reserve afterwards, so they don`t have to go straight into the fight.
Analyze where the scouts are going and how they`re getting there.
Don`t look at direct routes, look at the entire sector. I have seen
the scout platoon come out of the Jose Rodriguez Pass, run the south
wall, cut up behind the Snowcone/ 1SG Wash, and head to the north wall
to get to the Passage to India. The BLUEFOR was probably watching the
Goat Trail looking for the scouts.
Don`t get fixated looking for vehicles. The OPFOR use their vehicles
to get into sector and then they start humping. It is not uncommon for
the vehicle hides to be 2-3km or more from the final scout sets. BLUEFOR
scouts get way too tied to their vehicles. I remember one scout briefing
where the PL was telling one guy to park at the base of 1141, hide his BRDM
in the rocks, and walk back toward Iron Triangle to get eyes on the 6/6 there.
A BLUEFOR scout would have driven all the way to 114 Wadi and then started
walking. Remember that nothing is a stealthy as one man with a ruck, walking
along the base of a hill, at 0245, looking for a hole in the rocks to sit
and wait for sunup.
Remember that OPFOR recon comes in waves:
Div recon (at least one day before the attack)
Reg recon (usually the night before the attack)
the CRP (30 minutes before their respective elements)
nd then finally the FPs (directly in front of their MRCs).
Each one is looking for something different:
Div recon: CO/TM placement, obstacle work, general layout of the defense
and engagement areas
Reg recon: Weaknesses/ holes in the obstacles/ CO/TM positions,
locations of specific vehicles, location of scouts/ OPs,
locations of C2 assets
CRPs: route recon for their specific MRB, including likely enemy positions.
More than once, the CRP has made the initial point of penetration,
marked the lane, and secured the far side by the time the MRB catches up,
and they roll right through. Many times, you can see the CRPs from
follow-on MRBs mixed in with the vehicles of the MRB in front of them.
They are not part of the formation, but rather reconning those things
that their respective commanders need to know
FPs: look for good firing line positions and find and mark breach/ bypass sites
for their MRCs. They deal directly with their MRC and almost never talk
on a higher net
So you can see that there is a lot of recon to deal with, but it can be done. The
OPFOR will try to reconstitute their recon whenever possible, especially CRPs. The
key people to kill are the Div/Reg recon - they are the ones reporting holes in
your wire and vehicle positions. CRPs move with their MRBs, but the Div/Reg recon
goes in and stays in, looking at one place for 2 or 3 days straight thus making
them the hardest for the OPFOR to reconstitute.
2. Speed vs. Security: - AKA Maintain Your Momentum
This is especially important in the Meeting Battle/ Movement to Contact, where both
forces are moving. Many people think that you have either speed or security, but
ponder this: which is easier to hit - a tank moving 30-40 mph or a tank moving
10-15 mph that stops every 3-400 meters for overwatch? Yes, going slower allows
you to get a better fix on your surroundings, but it`s not like you`re driving
through a town where you have to watch every window and and door. You`re driving
into a desert where the only thing out there is a regiment of Krasnovians
intent on planting you in the sand, and it`s hard to sneak around in a BMP.
The OPFOR is scared to death of the M1A1 when used in massed formations.
They will go way out of their way to avoid meeting a tank-pure or tank-heavy
formation head-on. They will try to work the flanks of that unit and get the
ATC forward to deal with them at long ranges. A tank-heavy CO/TM or two leading
out on the meeting battle (W to E) that plows straight for hill 760 and gets
the high ground will draw a lot of attention from the OPFOR, and force them
to slow the momentum of their attack and deal with them, taking the artillery,
p-chem, and other combat multipliers off of the trail task force, where the
OPFOR would rather use them to seperate the two TFs and fight them separately.
Draw their attention away from your approach march long enough to get all
your forces into the fight. Once both TFs are in the fight, it`s tough
for the OPFOR to seperate them
The flip side of all of this is a Krasnovian wet dream: a mech-heavy
CO/TM leading with Bradleys that`s moving 10-15 mph so that the OPFOR
is able to get the FSE into the Iron Triangle/800 gap or the
Peanut/Chod/876 gap and mass fires on the TF as they squeeze out of the
passes. Leading with Bradleys is the NTC equivalent of sending the PAC
clerks out for a charge - they may draw some fire and expose some of the
OPFOR, but they don`t give the OPFOR any pause whatsoever and will
create absolutely no deviation from their plans.
The OPFOR believe that speed IS security. The faster they move, the harder
they are to hit. The further into your formation they get, the more they
disrupt your plan - now you suddenly have a 3/6 between you 2nd and 3rd
CO/TMs that you have to slow down to deal with, taking your attention away
from the 22/47 that`s about to run over your lead CO/TM.
3. Attitude:
I asked a buddy of mine to help out with these pages one time, and he said that
"There`s no real secret to the NTC. We boresight, they don`t. We`re accurate,
they`re not. We care if we win and we`re gonna be here after they leave, they
just want to go home as soon as they can. Their leaders are worried about looking
good in front of the OCs, we don`t care how we look, just as long as we`re alive
at the end." I tend to respect this guy`s input, because he`s been here over 3
years and spent all of it in the field - no staff time at all. This sounds harsh,
but I`d bet that if you take an honest gut check, you`d see that he`s not far off.
The OPFOR is cocky. They have a right to be, it`s not often that they get
kicked around. Your soldiers need to understand that the way to beat the
OPFOR is to have a desire to beat the OPFOR and concentrate on fundamentals.
Do the basics right - good hull-down positions, boresight every chance you
get, flank security, massed fires - and the OPFOR will go down. Their
home-court advantage is balanced by your technological edge (shooting on
the move is a major technological edge, believe it or not) but you have
to use that edge properly.
Discipline is the willingness to do what is right even when you can get
away with half-assing it. Half-assing it at NTC will get an embarrassing
whoopee light going off on your tank or an annoying squeal in your ear
from your MILES harness, but it will get you killed in wartime. Above
all else, remember that the NTC is practice for deploying to a war.
4. Firepower:
No army in the world is as good at putting accurate massed volumes of fire
downrange as the U.S Army, and the OPFOR are no different. Many CO/TMs have
been stopped dead in their tracks when an OPFOR MRC opens up with a volley
fire and suddenly his 10/4 is a 6/1. The shock value of a volley fire is
as overwhelming as the damage it causes. Yet BLUEFOR almost never volleys
fire, epecially in the defense when it`s easiest to control. Another guy I
know out there said "I can sum up NTC in 4 words - `set a firing line.`
When in doubt, get everyone on line, wait for a target, and volley fire."
Almost no OPFOR vehicles are ever killed at ranges in excess of 2000 meters.
This is not because of boresight, mobility, or techological deficiency.
It is because of a training deficiency: BLUEFOR crews cannot scan well enough
to acquire targets at their maximum engagement range. In a recent defense,
I was in a 1-tier hole - no turret down position - and tanks that were
500 meters away could not find me with 10X sights! A dismounted infantry
squad had to mark my position with colored smoke for the tanks to find me. (*see below for explanation ~)
I think the answer is obvious: more search and scan practice, but not in
UCOFT. Take a tank out the back gate of the motor pool, and send a HMMWV
out to 4000m and practice acquiring it in both daylight and thermal sight
while it tools around out there for a while. UCOFT is great for techniques,
but not for realism.
Somehow the artillery never ends up getting massed on the right target,
usually because the person that needs it does not have the ability to call
them directly. The lead CO/TM commander should have a direct line to an
artillery battery whose sole purpose in life is to shoot what that commander
tells him to shoot. The lead CO/TM has the best read on where the enemy is,
particularly in the MTC, where the first contact will be with an FSE
whose mission is to kill the lead CO/TM and fix the lead TF.
***********************************************
These are my notes and my admittedly unscientific observations of what happens at the NTC. With the exception of search/ scan procedures, I do not believe that it is a lack of training preventing us from succeeding at the NTC, but a lack of focus. We fail to focus our effort toward stopping the OPFORs critical systems (recon); we fail to focus our firepower on enemy formations (volleys of fire/ artillery); and we fail to focus our attitude toward success at the NTC, preferring instead to just "ride it out" and go home when our month is over. -LT G
***********************************************
*(Why they got that close is a question only Cobra 32A can answer - he was the OC who allowed these guys to advance in MILES defilade behind creosote bushes while we unloaded 3 boxes of 50cal ammo at them.)